Chapter 16

Cassie's POV

The air in the morning was cold and wet, the sort of quiet that breathed secrets into the wind. Mist still lingered about the bushes like a muted mantle as I trekked between the trees, leaves whispering against my dark cloak as if attempting to stop me, to query, Where are you, Luna? Why hide from me?

I had gotten out of the palace before the first light of morning, when the guards were switching watch and the wolves were still wrapped in slumber. I'd spent the entire night awake, my heart racing against my chest. It wouldn't occur. It hadn't occurred in weeks. My soul was unrested, like it knew something that I was only beginning to understand.

So I dressed in silence, concealing my silver-blonde hair beneath a black hood, wrapping my scent in herbs that I had stolen from the healer's wing. I was familiar with the palace as the back of my hand, with its secret passages and lesser-known exits. I had learned how to disappear.

And so I disappeared.

No one saw Luna slip into the forest.

My boots stepped into moss as I pushed deeper into the center of Greyer's Woods, where the trees grew taller and sun barely touched the ground. Birds awoke with dawn covering the earth, but their calls were faraway, wary. Even they sensed this region of the woods was unlike others.

Ancient.

Sacred.

The Wolf Magic Cave was concealed in a crescent of hills, hidden behind thick drapes of ivy and surrounded by a circle of elder trees leaning in on each other like supplicant observers. It was said to have been crafted from a broken star, a place where wolves could communicate with the ancient magic, the oldest source of our folk.

When I arrived, I hesitated at the opening. My breath fogged out. The air there was colder, thick with unseen strength that nipped at my flesh. The cave opening opened like the jaw of a sleeping beast, but I was not afraid. I went once as a child, with my mother. She told them that this earth did not respond to kings or Alphas—but to truth.

Only come when your soul craves it," she had spoken in a whisper.

And now, it did.

I entered.

The silence shrouded me at once. The light fell back behind me, to be followed by an uncharacteristic blue light that seemed to come from the walls themselves. Crystals pierced the rock, singing softly, as if alive. My footsteps had a faint echo, the sound being swallowed by the depth of the cave.

As I entered the heart chamber, the blue light intensified and flashed—once, twice.

He was there before me.

The Wolf Magician.

He appeared older than the stones themselves, wearing bone-colored robes that streamed without wind. His hair was silver, tied in cords down his back, and his eyes were bright white—empty, but light-filled. He stood among the runes etched into the stone ground, his hands folded over a twisted staff.

"You came," he said, his tone a vibration rather than sound. "The child demands the blood of the old."

My heart pounding.

"You know?" I gasped.

He once-nodded his head. "I knew when the spark was placed in your womb. Come near."

I took a step nearer, trying to keep the fear down.

He moved around me once, staff tapping against stone. Heat enveloped the air, heavy with power. Something churned up out of the ground into me, like tendrils of smoke rising to flame.

He spoke something in a tongue older than the packs. His voice expanded, quicker. The crystals vibrated.

And then silence.

He touched his hand to my belly. The heat adjusted immediately.

"Ghil'deth of power," he whispered. "Power flows through him like the river to the sea. This one is not ordinary, Luna."

I shut my eyes.

Part of me wanted to celebrate, to seize my belly and laugh in wonder.

But it wasn't joy that ran through me.

It was fear.

I took a trembling breath. "Can you… remove it?"

His hand fell. He did not say a word for a moment. Then gently, he spoke, "I could. But the price would be higher than blood. This child bears the mark. A destiny hangs on his breath. Take him away from me, and the world changes in shadow."

I held my head, tears scalding at my eyes.

"I didn't ask for this," I whispered. "I didn't want this."

The magician stood over me, and although his eyes were devoid of pupils, I could feel the power of his gaze cut through to my very center. "We rarely select the burdens that transform us. But transform us, they will."

I hugged my arms close, cloak flowing in the winds of magic still present.

"I have yet to mate with the twins," I admitted. "This child… he is not mine."

The air grew heavy. The magician already knew.

I realized that covering up myself to meet with the magician was useless. He was already aware of everything happening as if he had a mirror to monitor me.

Silently I hope this was like an oath of secrecy. Something strong that would bind him from revealing this information to the third parties.

"Jamie," he whispered.

His name wrung my gut.

"Yes," I gasped. "He… he won't believe it. He'll deny the child is his. And I don't wish to have anything more to do with him. That part of my life is finished."

The magician reached out to the runes, drawing his fingers over the air above them. Gentle light danced at his touch.

"And yet this child will always be a bond between you. Whether you claim it or not."

I dropped to my knees. The stone was unyielding under the cloth, hard.

"I do not wish to see Jamie. I do not wish to recall what he did. What he took from me."

I could not stifle the tears then. They streamed down my cheeks, burning and weeping, like sorrow I had yet to understand.

"But I cannot… I cannot murder this child. He is innocent. He did not volunteer to be born."

The magician bent his head, kneeling at my feet.

"Then let him live. But protect him."

"Help me," I told him. "The Alphas. they can't find out. Not yet. They'll question me. They'll insist on mating, blood bonds, and evidence. I don't think I can deal with that just now."

He looked at me for a very long time, then shoved his hand into the robes he wore. He produced a tiny vial, filled with glittering pink haze. It was soft-glowing, like the inside of a sunset.

"This will cover your scent. For now. Wolves will not be able to detect the presence of the cub beneath your skin."

I took it with shaking hands. "Thank you."

Two fingers touched my forehead. "But magic is slow. It does not annihilate. Be smart, Luna. There will come a time when no spell can hide what is growing within you."

I nodded and stood, hugging the vial to my chest.

I left the cave silently, the magician's words echoing in my head.

In the world outside, the forest greeted me with sunbeams piercing through the layer of treetops. The mist had vanished. Birds sang again. The woods no longer closed in on me—they felt something.

As I headed back, I stopped to open the vial and sprayed the mist about me. It smelled like broken roses and rain. The magical material penetrated the skin, enveloping me like an impenetrable cloak.

The baby wolf scent—vanished.

Until later.

I drew the hood forward over my head and strode to the palace as if I'd been in the wars.

In me a heartbeat that was not mine.

I had made my choice.

But I realized that this was just the beginning.